Arriving into Auckland, New Zealand after eight days in Fiji was heavenly. I was ready for western comforts. And not only was it western, Auckland city centre reminded me of Manchester. So I felt like I was home.
But it was at Base Backpacker hostel where we would be jolted from our cosy traveller bubble, and reminded that we were three girls, travelling alone.
We arrived at Base at around 3am on the Sunday morning to find that our booking was actually for the following night, meaning we were effectively homeless. Luckily, there was space for us, but it meant splitting up and going into mixed dorms. After a quick discussion, it was decided that Sarwah and I would go into one room, and Steph would go next door. We were all exhausted and so didn’t worry too much about the split.
The next morning after a restless night’s sleep I was getting ready in the shared bathroom when Steph walked in looking a little shell-shocked. She managed to say, “Something really traumatic happened last night”, before bursting into tears.
After we had gone to bed, Steph had gone to the bathroom, leaving her key in the dorm. The annoying thing about Base hostels is that doors automatically lock, so she was left stranded in the corridor. It was almost 4am so Steph knocked hoping someone might wake up and let her in. Eventually a tall, bearded German guy opened the door. She was thankful and climbed into her top bunk.
The room was dark and everyone was sleeping, but the German bloke kept talking to Steph, asking where she was from and where she had travelled to. Aware of her other room mates, Steph was polite but blunt and closed her eyes to sleep. The next thing she knew the bunk was gently shaking and she opened her eyes to find that the guy had climbed up the ladders and was hovering over her. Steph lay terrified as she watched the stranger calmly climb in to bed next to her. He kept trying to massage her feet but after a lot of hushed shouting he finally climbed back out. There were about four other guys in that room and no one did a thing to help.
I felt shock, anger, guilt and fear all in the space of a few seconds. We complained but nothing was done. I think we had become a little complacent because of our previous good luck with the other guys room mates. But Steph’s traumatic experience meant we all had our guards back up.
The drama in Auckland didn’t end there as when we were due to leave it turned out STA Travel had messed up some of our flights, meaning we were stuck in Auckland for another night because of the time differences between the UK and NZ.
After getting up at 3am only to head back to Base hostel, we didnt appreciate the bag storage guy taking a dislike to Steph and he proceeded to make our lives even more difficult for the last few hours that we were stranded there. That basically ended with Steph shouting, “I cannot believe people like you exist, dickhead!” In a very Geordie accent.
It wasn’t all bad though. During our four days there we had an amazing night out, repaired our stomachs with some good food and did a lot of relaxing, resting and reading in coffee shops.
When everything was finally sorted, we were on our way to Cairns.
No comments:
Post a Comment